Gas

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT GAS - PAGE 2

So, my good journalists, where's the outcry? When the price of gas approached $3 a gallon back in 2007 and 2008, all we heard from the liberal media was that it was because George Bush was in bed with oil companies and oil company profits are outrageous. Now with a Democratic president, there is not a peep out of the media as gas approaches $4 a gallon. Is Obama in bed with the oil companies? Have the oil companies' profits gone down? Hypocrites, thy name is liberal. Richard Schultz Fountain Hill

Scott Proefrock was a good sport about it 24 hours later, but he wasn't laughing Wednesday afternoon. The assistant GM was driving GM Ruben Amaro Jr., president David Montgomery, director of professional scouting Mike Ondo and Jesse Rendell (son of Ed Rendell) to the Phillies game in Port Charlotte on Wednesday when his rental car ran out of gas. "Let me just tell you something, we were in a hurry to get there. I didn't even look at my gas, going 75 miles an hour in the left lane, passing people.

Two teenagers are charged with entering a garage in South Whitehall Township on Friday afternoon to steal a 5-gallon tank of gas, according to court records. Timothy E. Zarzecki and Tyler M. Byrd, both 18 and of South Whitehall, are charged with burglary, theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy. They were arraigned by District Judge Robert Halal and released on $50,000 unsecured bail. According to a criminal complaint: A witness said he saw a sport utility vehicle stop at a home in the 3300 block of Trexler Road.

Almost everyone agrees that the opportunity to drill for Marcellus Shale and other natural gas deposits in Pennsylvania can be a boon to our state economy as well as an aid in our national need for energy. Most estimates indicate that billions of dollars worth of gas are located in Pennsylvania. As sportsmen and sportswomen who cherish our natural environment, we feel that the state Legislature must pass adequate funding measures dedicated to the state Fish and Boat Commission, state Game Commission, Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources so that these agencies may hire the properly trained people necessary to create and enforce the necessary regulations to ensure that our game lands, streams and wetlands are protected from any adverse effects of this drilling.

A man who stole a customer's car from an auto dealership near Bethlehem on Tuesday was arrested when the car ran out of gas 50 miles south at Valley Forge National Park, police said. Devon Morrissey, 19, of Phoenixville, Chester County, took the car from the Faulkner Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership on Stoke Park Road, Hanover Township, Northampton County, police said. The car was at the dealer to be serviced, Colonial Regional police said. Morrissey was charged with theft and receiving stolen property.

Everyone is upset with the price of gasoline these days and the huge profits of the oil companies. Many say the government should set a price or profit limit on these companies, but that is not how a capitalistic country exists. We survive because of profits made by these companies that caused them to invest with us in the first place. The answer is what have we been doing to ease these costs? Have we ridden ourselves of these glorified station wagons called SUVs ? Have we given up our cars with a 300 horsepower engine when tractor-trailers only have 450 horsepower?

The costs stemming from Allentown's deadly natural gas explosion has reached $200,000, a city spokesman said this week, though the true financial toll is estimated to be as much as double. Clearing the debris of the two houses that blew up and demolishing six others gutted by fire cost $143,000, spokesman Mike Moore said. The work was performed by Penmar Services, one of the contractors on the city's emergency demolition list, he said. The city also incurred $57,334 in immediate costs, down from the roughly $61,000 detailed last month.

HARRISBURG — Just in case state lawmakers had forgotten about the main challenge facing them as they returned to work Tuesday from a long holiday break, they didn't have to walk farther than the Capitol rotunda for a reminder. About 200 protesters, with signs and slogans at the ready, gathered there to demand the General Assembly reject legislation that would leave it up to the attorney general to call balls and strikes on local natural gas drilling ordinances. "It's bad legislation and it will be the destruction of our state if it is not killed," Maria Payan, of the York-based Peach Bottom Concerned Citizens Group, said in one of a series of emotional speeches.

Emergency crews are battling a fire at a barn in Bangor, and a 220-gallon gas tank is inside in the barn. Scanner reports say the fire is at 8448 Upper Little Creek Road and that a tanker task force has been dispatched to scene.

SCRANTON — Marcellus Shale natural gas production in Pennsylvania continued its rapid rise in the first half of 2011, according to figures released this week by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The state's 1,632 producing Marcellus wells pumped out 432.5 billion cubic feet of gas during the first six months of the year — a 60 percent increase from the amount of gas produced in the second half of 2010. The three counties that led the state in gas production, Bradford, Susquehanna and Tioga, pulled 260 billion cubic feet of gas from the shale — slightly less than all of the Marcellus Shale gas produced in the entire state in the last half of 2010.